Early Transportation in the Crystal Valley
by
Larry Meredith
As we cruise through the Crystal River Valley taking in the beautiful sights from the comfort of our modern vehicles it is easy to lose sight of the fact that it hasn’t always been that easy.
In fact, in the distant (and even not-so-distant) past it was downright difficult.
In the beginning, when the first humans explored the valley, it was done on foot. Many of those first human inhabitants followed the banks of the river and its tributaries, created their own paths or followed animal trails.
The first Native Americans to claim the valley as their own were the Ute Indians, but they were still on foot.
One story says that around 1637,some Utes were held captives by the Spanish in Santa Fe. They escaped and took with them Spanish horses, thus making the Utes one of the first Native American tribes to acquire the horse. However, tribal historians often say the Utes acquired the horse as early as the 1580s.
The Utes soon called themselves “the people of the horse.” Horseback they were able to move more easily throughout their mountain kingdom, including the Crystal Valley. Handling horses became not only a tradition and a survival skill, but also a practical method of transportation.
Even the first Mountain Men and prospectors came on foot. They came long before they were “officially” allowed into the territory of the Utes, especially when valuable ore was discovered along the Front Range and later in the “Colorado Mineral Belt” which runs from the La Plata Mountains in southwestern Colorado to near Boulder. Nearly 800 tons of gold were extracted from this “belt” beginning in 1858.
The Ute’s territory became smaller and smaller due largely to negotiated “treaties” such as the 1863 agreement which granted the Utes permanent reservation lands of which the Crystal Valley was a part “for as long as rivers might run and grasses might grow.” Even then,more and more “white men” were exploring the mountains in search of wealth. They came on foot and horseback.
As early as 1859 a prospector reported finding a rusted pan that might have been used for “panning for gold” earlier in the century. This was even though at that time the north-south boundary of the Ute reservation bisected the Crystal Valley and the area was officially off limits to prospectors.
Still, there were no roads in the valley.
Aspen was founded in 1879 and was initially named Ute City. The town of Carbondale was established soon after that and a rough road quickly connected the two towns.
In 1890 a wagon road was constructed on the river above Marble, through the Devil’s Punch Bowl to the town of Crested Butte.Stagecoaches were by then the fastest (if not the most comfortable) form of transportation for passengers and mail and, until 1899, a stage line ran between Redstone and Crested Butte. A stage line also ran from Carbondale, then called Satank, and the trip included a stage stop at a log building across the river from Penny Hot Springs at the north end of Filoha Meadow.
In the mid 1880s, the Crystal River Toll Company had built a road along the river toward Redstone. The ultimate goal was to reach Crystal City, a mining town far above Marble at the south end of the valley. However,that part of the toll road wasn’t completed until 1907.
In the meantime, during the long winter months, snowshoeing was often the only means of travel.
By then, another new and modern method of transportation in the valley was being considered. What the Native Americans called “the iron horse” would soon be a common sight in the valley and would herald a new and bold future for men with courage and vision – men like J. C. Osgood who would soon make the town of Redstone and nearby coal mines his crowning achievement.
By Larry K. Meredith, author of This Cursed Valley,
a novel about the Crystal River Valley
from 1880 to the 1830s.